Earlier this year, we migrated the entire Stack Overflow for Teams platform to Azure. This was a lengthy endeavour and Wouter de Kort, one of our core engineers, wrote about multiple technical aspects of the project in these posts: Journey to the cloud part I: Migrating Stack Overflow Teams to Azure Journey to the cloud … Read more
Over the years, SQL Server Statistics have been discussed in countless blog posts, articles, and presentations, and I believe that they will remain a core topic for a while when speaking about performance. Why is that? Well, if we were to consider the equivalent of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for database performances, statistics would be … Read more
A challenge that reappears periodically in the world of databases (especially database management) is the need to run code on a subset of databases and to do so in a nuanced manner. Some maintenance or metrics collection processes can be simply run against every database on a server with no ill-effect, but others may be … Read more
When I first saw a bullet item stating SQL Server 2022 would support instant file initialization for log file growth, I was excited. When I later learned it only applies to automatic growths, and only those of 64 MB or less, I was a little less excited. With those limitations, I was skeptical this enhancement … Read more
Extended Events have been part of SQL Server since 2008. In this article, Ed Pollack explains the building blocks of Extended Events data collection.… Read more
Microsoft provides many ways to run SQL Server in Azure, but which do you choose? In this article, Robert Sheldon explains the Azure SQL options.… Read more
Instant file initialization can speed up database creation, file growth, and restores. Greg Larsen explains how to configure it and how it works.… Read more
To be efficient and save money, many organizations are looking at hyperconverged infrastructures for SQL Server. In this article, Robert Sheldon explains what to consider for SQL Server and hyperconvergence.… Read more
SQL Server performance tuning can seem overwhelming when you don’t know where to start. In this article Robert Sheldon explains 9 best practices for performance tuning. … Read more
DBAs must make sure data is highly available, and there are many SQL Server high availability options. Pamela Mooney discusses those options in this article.… Read more
Out-of-control tempdb growth must be managed to keep the server running. Monica Rathbun gives her strategy to handle unexpected tempdb growth. … Read more
Synonyms inside SQL Server are one of those useful but forgotten features. A synonym is a database level object that allows you to provide an alternative name for another database object such as a view, user defined table, scalar function, stored procedure, inline table valued function (tvf), or extended stored procedure. They can also be … Read more
RAID has been around since the 90s to ensure performance and reliability of storage. Robert Sheldon explains the history and theory behind RAID.… Read more
SQL Server triggers are another tool in your DBA or Dev toolbox. Edward Pollack explains what can go wrong with triggers and how to correct those issues.… Read more
The SQL Server error log is a great source of information for DBAs for monitoring errors and the operation of the server. Greg Larsen explains the details and how to configure the SQL Server error log.… Read more
Comparing current performance to baselines helps DBAs know when there’s a problem. In this article, Pamela Mooney describes how to measure the physical resources drive space, latency, memory, and CPU.… Read more
Without a good backup and recovery strategy in place, a DBA should make sure their resume is always up to date. In this article, Greg Larsen discusses what should be considered when developing a backup plan.… Read more
